Carnivore Plans Live, New Studio CDs

Having finished its European tour nearly a month ago, Carnivore drummer Steve Tobin says the band hopes to release a live CD by summer and support it with more performances, then start working in earnest on a new studio album.

"We really wanna get the live CD out and then do some more shows as well, like a full-length tour of the U.S. and maybe even a longer tour of Europe this time," Tobin says. The band has been "talking with somepeople" about releasing the record, but he declined to name who.

As far as whether Carnivore has taped any live material that it would release, Tobin notes, "I'd hate to comment on that at this point. I'll put it to you this way: All of the shows that we play, we're very proud of the performances that we've done so far . . . We're probably going to do a couple of shows coming up before too long that we would also like to record."

Carnivore currently comprises Tobin and Paul Bento of Metal Health Association, Type O Negative's Peter Steele and Life Of Agony's Joey Z. Steele is Carnivore's sole original member. Louie Beateaux and the late Keith Alexander joined him on the band's 1985 self-titled debut,and Marc Piovanetti replaced Alexander as guitarist for 1987's"Retaliation" before the group disbanded. It regrouped for reunion shows in 2006.

With Steele being the only original band member, we asked Tobin how he imagined the present lineup would approach songwriting in the Carnivore vein. "Of course, Pete would probably be the main songwriter. But we've all talked about this as all of us contributingt o the writing aspects of the songs," Tobin says. "There would be the Carnivore element, but then there would also be other elements that everybody would bring to the table that is in the band now. It would be Carnivore, but it would also be with a fresh perspective . . .We've jammed on a number of ideas already, and what we've jammed on does sound great. It's a work on progress, so we'll just have to seehow things turn out."

Tobin feels that realistically, the earliest the band will enter the studio to record the album is in a year.